Valley City High School senior Allyson Suhr opened the Barnes County Tournament with the type of game that any post player would love to have.
With a few inches of height over the Litchville-Marion Montpelier girls, Suhr was able to consistently low into the post for open shots and grabbed rebounds with ease.
In the 59-26 win over the Rebels, Suhr finished with 26 points, as many as the opposing squad. But she’s not the type to take credit for it.
“It was a lot of fun to just run and gun,” Suhr said. “I just felt good and we were passing the ball really nicely and working as a team. It’s not all just me.”
Her modesty had plenty of truth to it.
The game was only tied once, when LMM’s Sydney Headland hit a layup to tie it 2-2 early.
From there, the Hi-Liners opened the game up with a 19-6 run the rest of the quarter and dominated the game on the defensive end.
Valley City also was able to connect on early shots and quickly found their offensive rhythm in the run, which included six points from Jenna Jacob, a 3-pointer from Mariah Olstad and nine from Suhr.
“I liked our energy from the start,” said Valley City coach Jim McDaniel. “We hit shots right away, our defense was aggressive right away. We had our game going right from the start.”
“Everybody just kind of clicked today, it was good to see.”
The Hi-Liners allowed double digit points in only the fourth quarter and allowed only four points in the second quarter to take a 31-12 lead at halftime.
In the team’s 17 point third quarter, Suhr had 13. She finished with 11 two-point field goals and went 4-4 in free throws.
LMM coach Dave Handt said his team faced issues with both confidence offensively and was “shell shocked” playing on a larger court.
“Valley City’s a tough team,” he said. “They played us tough defensively and got in our minds early.”
Suhr was one of two Valley City players to score in double digits. Jacob finished with 10.
LMM was led in scoring by Brenna Rodin with 11, including three 3-pointers.

Barnes County North 51, Griggs County Central 39
Barnes County North basketball team got on the board quickly to beat Griggs County Central.
Within a minute and a half of the opening tipoff, the Bison were up 7-0, and went up 23-6 by the end of the quarter using a balanced offense from Lauren McMillan and Sarah Peterson, who had six points each.
The key, BCN coach Randy Hooey said, was defense.
"I thought we did a really good job pressuring the ball and getting out and denying some passes," he said. "I thought that really helped us out."
The Bison went up 33-13 at halftime.
The majority of Griggs County’s offensive attack early was limited to sophomore Presley Painter, who had 11 of the team’s 13 points at halftime. The other two came on a shot by Shelby Jacobson.
In the second half, the Cougars came fighting back and narrowed the lead to as few as 11 points late in the game, but were unable to narrow the lead further despite holding the Bison to nine points in either of the last two quarters.
McMillan led Barnes County with 10 points and Calby Hanson had eight.
Painter led Griggs County with 24 points.